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Financial Year 09/10
by The Treasurer and his team of accountants, The Intern and The Belgian At the time of publication, I am happy to report that the global commodities index state that the price of aggregates has sky-rocketed to an all time high. Our current stock of 46 units has finally matured as I suspected it would all along. The Society is now the proud owner of stocks in excess of 82 and a half pence. In further news our investments in livestock have also peaked. The 4.20 at Cheltenham has resulted in a net gain of £15.80 but this was quickly countered by an overall net loss by hedging at the hands of Messers Ladbrooke and Hill. We will never be able to look a Malawian in the eye again. As a result, this leaves the Society firmly and irreconcilably in the red. International Conditions The situation regarding the Belgian-Euro has been improved over the last 12 months as further efforts have been made to integrate him with good old fashioned English values. To this end he has been repeatedly 'pound'ed; 'sterling' work in this field having been provided by the Secretary. Though nothing could be done about his over-investment in a slue of bad 'g(u)ilts', he has defied prediction last year to the effect that he would be in total meltdown within 12 months. Such deflationary work is often enacted through the use of shiny things as distractions. When shiny things are not present, he is sent into the kitchen to work. Although all we hear is the sound of knives being sharpened. In the long term total refrigeration costs in our Belgian outfit are set to rapidly decline due to a running down of inventories in the beer sector. Even as you read this, the Treasuariat is ruthlessly purging inefficiencies in scandalously lax processing systems. Unfortunately, this positive step has been offset by the Historian, who is the Nick Leeson / Jerome Kernival of our tribe. His going rogue is currently in the form of a de-industrialisation to south east Asia where, one must infer, he has been driven by either necessity or opportunity. Statistically the former is likely. Unforeseen circumstances / Acts of God The Belgian appears to have become, much like Fitzgerald's plate, irrevocably cracked. His madness approaches biblical proportions at times, as he sits bolt upright in his easy chair and prophesies about terrible events which he believes are transpiring all around him. Most of his ranting revolves around the central theme of a 'plague of locusts' who are 'eating him out of house and home'. These visions aren't even loosely anchored in reality. All is quite calm in his lounge at the moment, as I sit here with the Treasurer enjoying the most recent of a long line of cold Jupilers. There are no locusts visible anywhere, what a load of ballyhoo! In the kitchen the Intern is busying himself with the procurement of a pre-nap snack, and our Farne Island stocks are, for the forsseable future, high enough to ensure a quick trip to boom town. The official Tavistock Society position regarding this non-event is that the Belgian should disregard whatever he considers to be the warning signs of impending disaster and probably take the lock off his spirits cabinet, as it is a terrible fire-risk. Investments Much like our Martinis, our accounts are frozen. And they only make us angry. Apparently ignorance is not a valid excuse in a court of law. The financial team had innocently attempted to make our finances honest by passing it through various third party companies and across international borders. Luckily, an executive decision was made to “trim the fat” by allowing the Belgian to be the fall-guy. The judge described his actions as “outrageous, given his already stained record”. He only escaped a custodial sentence by offering up dirt to Mr Starmer. Regarding last years deficit It is with regret that I am forced to inform the society that last year's unexpected loss of total testicular power has not been mitigated entirely by this year's activities. The Secretary remains operational only on the left side, and the Belgian is still neuter. However, despite the global recession and challenging conditions, the President has demonstrated his potency and raised the asset price of his own pair in this trading period. Overall, I would describe our condition en-tout as sub average, but as this is not a major growth industry or a key sector of our company, we remain in an acceptable, if imperfect state. Future trading conditions In view of past failures and a firmly held belief that we reached rock bottom six months ago (the adjustment to our current subterranean level of continued fall in sales (apart from our own office furniture, which went quickly and at a deflated price), the future prospects are predicted by the best available method: a tossing of the coin. Since we ran out of such monies a good while ago (our last copper was spent on buying ham), we used another disc shaped object: Mother's china. It turned out this method led inevitably to a rather shattered and incoherent outcome, and it became increasingly difficult to recognise any of the resulting bits as either 'heads' or 'tails'. This matter needed settling quickly, preferably before tea time. As the other members of the committee's only interest was in past glories, the future conditions were all to clear: rainy with a probability of a limp thunderstorm. The Belgian took things into his own hands and decided on a cull of the other members from the Treasuriate, by executive decision. Any future conditions will lead inexorably to a state of continued impotence and a monumental rash, induced stealthily by the cooking of a particularly potent meal of Couscous and Ham. At this point The Belgian was forcibly removed from his place at the committee table and reassigned to more imperative matters. He shall spend the rest of the report writing period underneath said table with a sponge and cold water, cooling down the inflamed balls of the committee. Holdings Our holdings of vintage copies of Der Sturmer are apparently not tax-deductable on the grounds that they are educational tools. Instead we have been forced to pay due rates to HMRC at the point of import (Cleethorpes). The asset value of these holdings has decreased over the past 12 months primarily because the Gamekeeper overpaid for them, but also due to their imperfect storage in one of The Belgian's numerous bathrooms. An expert valuation of the stock was nil, and it was noted – more than in passing – that the condition of this musty stack of propaganda was liable to induce vomiting from the mouth. Overheads It is sad to report that there has been no lowering of expenditure on therapy for the Intern. His testicular fixation has not shown any signs of abating, if anything his obsession grows exponentially. It is all balls. Efforts have been made to expunge any and all references to the societies testicles from this document but sadly there were so many that it was not possible to achieve this comprehensively. And I commend this budget to the Society